


Whistle I'll Be There

by Arsenic



Category: Sweeney Todd - Sondheim/Wheeler
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 00:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21437341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Johanna's not used to freedom.  She intends to get used to it, though.
Relationships: Johanna Barker/Anthony Hope
Comments: 20
Kudos: 53
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Whistle I'll Be There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [athousandwinds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/gifts).

> Hi recip! So, I've kind of always wanted to write the what-happens-next in this fandom? Thank you for giving me that chance, I hope something in this story speaks to you.
> 
> Thank you to my beta.

Johanna wakes with the taste of ashes on her tongue, her lips tinged with the copper-salt of blood. She breathes in through her nose and chokes on the scent of brine and fish. Underneath her, the earth moves.

No, not the earth. The water. She remembers, now. Anthony had booked them passage on a boat. Johanna has never been on a boat, has never left London, has never…done much, really.

She swallows carefully, aware of her stomach pitching with the gentle rocking of the vessel. The channel must be calm, even so, the movement is more than she’s accustomed to. She wonders if venturing past the gates of one’s own prison always results in blood and fire, terror and sickness. She wonders if she regrets leaving. Taking another slow breath in through her nose, acclimating to the sharpness of the smells, she knows she does not. The air here might not smell fresh, but it smells _different_, and Johanna thinks that difference might be a part of freedom.

She will take fear of the unknown over the certain dread of the known any day. Even now, more aware of what that means, she will step out of the gate and sail until it is nothing but a distant memory.

* * *

They disembark in Le Havre. Johanna kisses the cheek of Pierre, the boat owner whose cot she had woken up in. He blushes and gives them directions to a boarding house that evidently is clean and has a good reputation. 

Johanna has a few years of schoolroom French, and Anthony has a sailor’s practical command of the language, and between the two of them, they manage to get a room, order a bath, and find out where Johanna might procure some clothing. She is still in the boy’s outfit that served as a disguise. 

The bathwater is lukewarm. Her last bathing experience involved standing naked in front of leering men and having buckets of cold water thrown onto her, and that was easily two days before. It is heaven to scrub memories of captivity, of death, of _evil_, out of her skin, tepid water notwithstanding.

The proprietor of the boarding house has loaned her a dress. Johanna drowns in it, but it covers her skin and her uncertainties; as of this moment, that is all she requires.

* * *

In the early evening, after they have acquired some basics from the market and dined with the other boarders, in the privacy of their room, Anthony says, “I—I should still like to marry you.”

Johanna blinks. She supposes she should have considered that she could walk out the door, find some other life for herself. She can read and write, speak passable French and German, do a rather stunning cross-stitch, play enough piano to entertain for an evening, and is versed in table etiquette. Essentially, if she had any idea whether she liked children, or was good at molding them, she would have made a perfectly acceptable governess. Without references, however, she is unlikely to be hired by any respectable family.

In terms of useful skills, say, sewing or cooking or any of the things that could help a woman find a decent position, she is decidedly lacking. If nothing else, it is safe to stay with Anthony, who will most likely resume his naval commission in a few days, and bring in a steady income while rarely being around.

She opens her mouth to agree, and it is the genuine desire in his eyes, the sincerity of the statement that stops her. In the end, she tells him honestly, “I do not know what I want. I’ve never thought beyond…”

“Beyond freedom,” he finishes.

“Beyond that,” she agrees.

“Then let me court you.”

It’s a foolish notion, in some ways. She’s already ruined for a marriage of any quality, having fled with him, having shared this room with him. And yet… And yet Johanna once used stories of romance to take her beyond her four walls, her confined reality. She finds herself smiling. “Yes. I would like that.”

“I must return to my ship in two days, and cannot take leave again for another eight months, but if you will give me those two days, and respond to my letters, I—I believe I can win your heart, and not just for lack of options.”

His eyes are kind, as is his recognition that she has options now. Johanna is used to being desperate for kindness. It’s the receiving of it that nearly does her in.

* * *

The next morning, they breakfast at the boarding house before setting out to find a flat. Johanna says, “I haven’t any money.”

“I took care of that,” Anthony tells her, declining to glance her way. She suspects he stole money from the pie shop. She supposes she should feel bad about that, but she can’t find it in herself. Perhaps her moral compass is failing, or perhaps she is simply too pragmatic at this point to be bothered by crimes that don’t leave people bleeding and broken, or worse.

It takes the better part of a day—and pretending they are married—but they find a room over a haberdashery. The furnishings are not grand. It does not matter: Johanna will have the right to come and go. She finds that is all that truly matters to her.

It is the owner of the shop’s wife with whom they make arrangements. The woman is probably around the age Johanna’s mother would have been. Johanna cannot remember her mother, not with any strength or clarity, but she’s never lost the sense memory of having her hair braided by gentle hands, the press of a kiss to her forehead.

The woman, Marie, asks if they wish to join her family for dinner. Anthony accepts the invitation with the ease he has with others. Johanna finds herself glad he has done so. The home is small and filled with comforts: a well-tended fire, the smell of a roast chicken, pillows clearly made by hand. They have two children, a son a year older than Johanna, and another, two years younger. 

When Johanna asks, “May I help?” Marie says, “The dough needs working, if you wouldn’t mind.”

Johanna admits, “I’ve never done that, I—”

Marie smiles, “It’s a very good skill to start with, as cooking goes. Fun, and hard to get wrong.”

Once directed, Johanna pounds and twists and squeezes the dough, finding a type of release in the almost-violence of it, and eventually, Marie has to take it from her. Johanna asks, “Teach me the rest?”

Marie seems glad to do so.

* * *

“I will be gone before the sun is up,” Anthony tells her. 

“Wake me,” she says. “I like watching the sunrise. And do know how to boil tea.”

He laughs at that. “Me, too.”

She smiles. “Thank you. For—”

Anthony shakes his head. “No, no. Nobody should be kept against their will.”

It’s true, but doesn’t change the fact that she’s grateful. Even so, she acknowledges it with a dip of her head. 

“If you decide not to wait—”

“Anthony—”

“If you decide not to wait,” he reiterates, “leave a note with Marie and Jean, letting me know you are all right.”

Johanna does not think she will leave, not in that time. She longs for adventure, which is different entirely than being flighty. At least, she believes it is. “Very well.”

“I wish I did not have to leave.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “But I think I need to learn how well my own feet will support me. And I don’t know that I can do that with you here.”

“I’ll write of places we’ll see together one day.”

She nods. “Tell me of their smells and sounds, how the air tastes.”

“Yes,” he agrees, “I will.”

Johanna kisses him on the lips. It is chaste, not a promise, merely a seal of friendship. “Good night, Anthony.”

“Good night, Johanna.”

She settles into the bed, snuffing out the lamp and closing her eyes. Even if the nightmares come, she will be here when she wakes from them, free and ready for another day.


End file.
